IBWOH: Christopher Carlisle.
Summary: Hoping for a drier, less aquatic experience, I hiked the extensive logging roads to the east of Hutson Lake, in the Pascagoula WMA. The hike took me on a nearly constant southward trajectory, ending at the lake with the giant hollow cypress, who I have named Hollow Man; beyond lies another small muddy lake, which I was unwilling to hike to. The dawn came late, with clouds from the night's rains lingering until after 7 a.m. Still, though it was humid, the hike was pleasant enough. I moved slowly, stopping every 15-20 yards or so to listen, and carefully scanning the trees for cavities and signs of scaling. This is my method, the Close Survey, similar to the method I used to employ in my squirrel hunts, and which also seems to have been (with some variation) the method of ivorybill searchers in the past.
A dominant tree species in this area is the water oak, which I do not believe is generally favored by the Ivorybill; but equally abundant are large sweet gums, which I do believe are a favored species. Swamp chestnut oak is common here, as is red oak, with white oak slightly less so; there are occasional groves of laurel oak and willow oak, and there are at least two old live oaks easily spotted from the trail, one with some scaling evident on a high bough. Spruce pine is common, with no other species of pine evident. Strangely, I found no magnolia or sweetbay. I also encountered no tulip poplar. Baldcypress is, of course, present in great numbers, along with water tupelo. Beech (some impressive specimens) and river birch lurk in odd corners near lakes and sloughs.
Pileated and red-bellied woodpeckers were up early, but I did not hear the redheads until somehwhat later. I spied many birds, including yellow-billed cuckoos, a Kentucky warbler, Carolina wrens, and summer tanagers; but they did not seem as active as they used. Autumn approaches.
Slough, not far from the trailhead. It is probably the same winding slough that defeated Richard and I, and claimed my old cell phone.
Scaling near the trail.
I revisited the scaling Brian and I had discovered before.
Golden silk orb-weaver Nephila clavipes, or banana spider.
Exposed scaling on sweet gum at trailside. I could find no evidence of another tree having fallen and sloughing the bark off.
Swamp chestnut oak, showing possible sign of blight.
Many swamp chestnut oaks in the area were similarly affected.
Lower bole scaling of this type seems to occur mainly on sweet gum. On spruce pine, the scaling seldom goes all the way around the tree.
Note the "clipped" look of the vines. This leads me to suspect it to be the work of a beaver despite the distance (200-300 yards) from any water source.
Scaling to a young white oak.
Rootings of hog.
Fresh wallow of hog.
South end of north-bound hog.
Scaling to live oak bough. Unfortunately, the low light of early morning prevented me from getting a better picture.
Cardinal flower. One of my favorites.
Old scaling, 20-30 feet up a sweet gum.
Romalea guttata, or Eastern lubber grasshopper. Black adult color phase. Very common in this area.
My momma calls 'em "Devil horses."
Nice cavity in a live water oak.
A female Prothonotary Warbler, checking me out.
More scaling. I could not identify the tree species.
Hollow Man (left). I did not disturb his repose this day.
Furthest extent of the day's hike for me. I would not wade this slough for a better look at the lake beyond.
Hog butt imprint.
About halfway back on the return hike, I began to hear the high, forlorn yowls of some lonely creature from the direction of the River, and which followed me for some two hundred yards through the bottomland. It may have been a bobcat, or a coyote, or a fox; but I thought of my old Professor of Mississippi History at the University of Southern Mississippi, the redoubtable John Edmond Gonzales, the biographer of Senator Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar. One day, during our survey of the history of the Great State of Mississippi, Doctor Gonzales held forth regarding Religion in our fair state; and he offered up this gem of oratory, taken from The Harp of a Thousand Strings; or, Laughter for a Lifetime, ed. S.P. Avery, and supposedly gleaned by the latter from a collection of travelling preachers' tales, or parodies thereof:
"Bretheren and sisteren, I do not come before you this evening to engage in any grammar talk or college high-falutin' but I come to prepare a pervarse generation for the day of wrath, and my text, when you find it, you'll find it 'twixt the lids of this old Bible, from the first chapter of Second Chronicles to the last chapter of Timothy-Titus, and when you find it, you'll find it in these words, 'And they shall gnaw a file, and flee into the mountains of Hespudam, where the lion roareth, and the whang-doodle mourneth for its first-born,' ahhh." [Here the preacher breathes out a deep 'ahhh,' for added effect, supposedly.]
"Now, my bretheren and sisteren, there's different kinds of files. There's the rat-tailed file, and there's the handsaw file, and there's the crosscut file, and there's the profile and the defile... but the text says, 'they shall gnaw a file, and flee into the mountains of Hespudam, where the lion roareth, and the whang-doodle mourneth for its first-born,' ahh.
"And brethren and sisteren, there are many kinds of dams. There's Amsterdam, and then there's Rotterdam, and there's Beaverdam, but the last of all and the worst of all, my bretheren, is "I don't give a damn," but the text says that 'They shall gnaw a file, and flee into the mountains of Hespudam, where the lion roareth and the whang-doodle mourneth for its first-born,' ahh.
"Now, my bretheren and sisteren, this reminds me of the man who lived upon the north fork of Little Pine Creek in Madison County, North Carolina. He had a little mill, but he ground a heap of corn, but one night the fountain of the great deep was broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened and the rains descended, the winds came and washed that little man's mill to Kingdom Come. He got up the next morning and told the good old wife of his bosom that he wasn't worth a damn! But the text says that 'they shall gnaw a file, and flee into the mountains of Hespudam, where the lion roareth, and the whang-doodle mourneth for its first-born,' ahh.
"My bretheren and sisteren, this doesn't mean the howling wilderness where John the Hardshelled Baptist fed on locusts and wild asses, but it means the City of New Orleans, the mother of harlots and hard-lots, where corn is six bits a bushel one day and nary a red the next, and where thieves and pickpockets go skitting about like weasels in a barnyard, and where honest men are scarcer n'hen's teeth, and where a woman once took up your beloved preacher and bamboozled him out of a hundred and twenty-seven plunks in three jerks of the eye and the twinkling of a sheep's tail, but she can't do it again, hallelujah!"
Strange, how old threads of memory waft up out of their dustbin at odd whiles. So, with the Singing River and the yowls of the whang-doodle behind me, and thoughts of John Edmond Gonzales and my days as an academic in my mind, I left the swamp again, to search for the Ivorybill another day.
Juvenile Little Blue Heron.
IBWO-1, always a welcome sight after a hot day on the trail.
Juvenile white ibis.
Conclusions: This will be the last survey I will make of the Hutson Lake area of the Pascagoula WMA until leaf-fall later in Autumn. Hopefully, more bark scaling and cavities will be visible then. My next IBWO survey area: Black Creek, for which there is an IBWO encounter (kents) on record from the 1970's.
Black Creek landing, between Benndale and Wiggins.
Looking downstream, where after many miles Black Creek eventually joins Red Creek before emptying into the Pascagoula River.
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